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Researchers want to know what areas of the brain are associated with MS fatigue.

Margaret Balter was a nurse until multiple sclerosis made it impossible to keep working. She says she was getting numbers and words mixed up and no longer trusted herself to keep her patients safe.

Three-quarters of people with MS say that the mental fog and fatigue are the worst aspect of the disease, even more debilitating than the physical challenges.

Balter is participating in a study at the Kessler Foundation in New Jersey that is looking for possible solutions for mental fatigue in MS patients. Balter says it’s her way of helping others even though she can no longer be a nurse. “I feel like I’m a little connected to the medical world, seeing what’s new and developing.”

Helen Genova, PhD, is leading the study. “What’s going on at the level of the brain? That is what we really wanted to know,” she says. “What brain regions are helping compensate for that level of exhaustion that they feel?”

Dr. Genova is finding some interesting things. She says it looks like areas of the brain associated with physical movement are pitching in as the brain gets progressively more fatigued.

She hopes that will one day lead to therapies to help patients like Margaret Balter.